Brazilian prosecutors call for the immediate closure of Sao Paulo’s airport today after the country’s worst air disaster in its history.
Governor Jose Serra declared that the volume of air traffic at Congonhas must to be drastically. A plane belonging to Brazil’s TAM airlinehit a nearby warehouse and exploded, killing 186 people on board and three on the ground.
Footage shows Flight 3054 accelerating as it hit the short runway. Authorities believe the pilot tried to abort his landing and take off again.
Rescue workers suspended the search for victims when the building at the crash scene threatened collapse. 4 Europeans, three from France and one from Portugal, were on board.
Pilots are instructed to touch down within the first 1,000ft (300m), or pull up and circle round again. Yesterday, another TAM airline jet was rerouted after coming in at an unsafe angle.
The official statement is that it is necessary to temporarily paralyze the activities at the Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo until a complete renovation of both of its runways can be completed and there is certainty that they are fully secure for full operations.
The senate leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSDB), Arthur Virgilio – whose colleague, the opposition leader Julio Redecker, was killed in the crash – said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, needed to “act, not to talk…Otherwise his term will be marked by the suffering and pain of so many Brazilians who could still be alive.”
Friday, October 31 2008
It has been 12 years since 99 people died in the Tam Congonhas Fokker-100 accident.
On October 31 1996. TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 set off for Rio De Janeiro and fell to earth minutes after take-off from Congonhas airport, spreading destruction on two building and seven houses, killing 99 people: 90 passengers, six members of the crew and three people on the street.
Inquiries of TAM and Fokker, (the company who manufactured the airplane) concluded that a malfunctioning relay caused he opening of the right reverser. In December 1997, the Aeronautics Report found TAM guilty and made Fokker responsible for imperfections in the airplane.
According to the Center of Inquiry and Prevention of Air Accidents (Cenipa) Report, during take-off, the reverser of the right engine of the Fokker-100 opened, and without any alarm, was set in motion, catching by surprise a crew in the command cabin that never was trained for this situation.
The report disclosed that on 28 of June 1995, the Fokker sent a letter claiming it was not necessary to train pilots for this type of emergency because it was impossible for the Fokker reverser to open during take-off.
The report says that a system changed altered the probability of imperfection in the system to one in ten million from one in a million.
One another factor helped to knock down the airplane: the contacts of a relay (controlling of electric circuits) that should have set in motion the alarm system. This relay, according to Douglas colonel Axe, head of the Cenipa, was found 13 days after the accident.
The human error that was the consequence of these other two situations: the lack of information on pane, caused by the burnt relay, and the lack of training for the situation by the manufacturer of the aircraft. According to report, the pilots had not followed basic recommendations.
According to colonel Axe, the pilots could have gained time if they had allowed the airplane to go up to stabilize, without “forcing the engine in pane because of the reverse.”
The Cenipa said that the only acknowledgment that the pilots had of the opening of the reverser was the brusque jib of the manual acceleration of the aircraft, then later when the airplane left the soil, the landing gear.
A computer animation showed how the pilots acted in a desperate attempt to discover what was occurring.
The tragedy timeline:
8h26m: The control tower authorizes the airplane to take off.
29 seconds: The airplane runs about 90 kilometers per minute in the track.
55 seconds: The airplane raises in flight. The reverse of right turbine opens and closes for the first time, without the pilot perceiving it.
70 seconds: The reverser opens for the third time and it does not close.
74 seconds: The Fokker stick starts to tremble and the airplane loses height.
79 seconds: The Fokker inclines to the right, the wing striking a three story building . The airplane blows up. Ninety and nine people die.
8h27m.
Postado for Jorge Tadeu Da Silva
Apologies for any errors in translation
On Feb 12, 2013, at 4:15 p.m. a Meghna Group McDonnell Douglas Md600N en route from Nimertek village in Rupganj upazila, Bangladesh hit a tree while en route.
One account says the helicopter struck the tree in Narayanganj after suffering technical glitches.
Two were hospitalized at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. There were two crew and four or five passengers. (Accounts vary.)
Joy Chiedozie Allison died on Dana Air Flight 992. Her family has hired attorney Gary Robb. On June 7 (yesterday) Robb filed a 56 page lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago, a discovery motion naming The Boeing Company, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp., United Technologies Corporation and Estate of Peter Waxtan.
In the Dana Airlines crash, both of the MD-83’s engines failed before it crashed into several buildings in Nigeria
The chief engineer of Dana Air was also aboard the plane when it crashed. Employees of Dana airlines have said that owners were aware that the jet had mechanical troubles struggling on a Calabar flight;, but the crew was forced fly anyway, and fly it loaded to the hilt with passengers and luggage.
Captain Oscar Wason is saying there may have been a bird strike. The black boxes have been recovered and will be sent to the US. The black boxes will have the truth.
Joy Allison worked for Federal Express.
Pictured: A LifeNet Eurocopter AS-350B-3 Ecureuil. The one in the crash is
registration # N509AM
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer David J Transier
What: AirMethods American Eurocopter AS 350B3 Ecureuil en route from Marana to Southeast Arizona Medical Center
Where: Near Park and 1st Avenue, Tucson, Arizona
When: July 28, 2010, 2 pm
Who: pilot, flight nurse and paramedic
Why: On a medical helicopter service LifeNet Arizona flight, the crew had recently spoken to ATC when the helicopter crashed in a residential neighborhood behind a house. A witness said the pilot directed the helicopter away from the house; and that the engine made “popping noises” before it went silent. It’s rotors stopped, and it fell from the sky. No patients were aboard, but the crew died on the scene.
